


If You Die, I'm Gonna Kill You

by dedicatedfollower467



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Art, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Multi, Other, Prompt Fill, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3891181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedicatedfollower467/pseuds/dedicatedfollower467
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt "44. If you die, I’m gonna kill you. OT4 [Up All Night To Get Bucky]"</p>
<p>(Rated T for language)</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Die, I'm Gonna Kill You

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my Tumblr.

Steve is thin and pale, his wheezing gasps echoing through the tiny tenement. Bucky paces back and forth in the parlor, listening to that horrible death rattle and flinging prayers out into space.

On the one hand, broken, half-forgotten Hebrew to a G-d he isn’t sure he still believes in. Guilty prayer, knowing he hasn’t kept kosher since he was six and never had a bar mitzvah and doesn’t have the time for shabbat. He hopes that G-d can forgive him for the sake of one truly righteous man.

On the other hand, pleading bargains to Steve’s god, the one he definitely _doesn’t_ believe in, but he’ll take any chance.

_If you’re real and you made him_ , Bucky thinks,  _then you know he’s the best damn person in the entire damn world. You made him like that, you made him too good for this shitty earth and you have to have a plan for him. Take me if you have to, but you gotta keep him alive._

It’s not Latin, but it’ll have to do.

Three nights he spends, wearing down the floorboards by the door to Steve’s bedroom, listening and hoping and praying that  _someone_ will let that chest breathe easy, let those eyes open another day.

On the fourth day, the fever breaks. Steve squints up at him, and he asks for water in a raspy voice. When Bucky gets him a glass, he doesn’t bring it all back up again an hour later.

It’s only once Steve’s really out of the woods that he feels like he can say it.

“You listen here, Steve,” he says. “I swear, if you die, I’m gonna kill you.”

Steve shrugs. “Fair enough.”

* * *

 

The mission was supposed to be simple.

In Natasha’s experience, nothing is ever simple, especially not when Captain America is on the team.

It’s not that she doesn’t like working with him. He’s sweet and surprisingly sarcastic, but he has an uncompromising attitude about morals that’s inconvenient and a tendency towards self-sacrifice that borders on the suicidal.

Frankly, he’s a liability, and Natasha is tired of saving his ass. But she will continue to do so as long as it’s part of her job. Besides, she kind of likes the big guy. He needs to get laid.

Which is why when the mission goes FUBAR and Steve gets shot trying to shelter a group of orphans, Natasha quickly and cleanly kills the man with the gun and starts providing immediate first aid.

The wound is serious, bleeding copiously, and on most other men it would be a death sentence. But Natasha doesn’t know how much the Super Soldier Serum has changed his anatomy, so she puts pressure on it and calls for immediate med evac. The orphan children huddle in a corner, too scared to do more than that.

Natasha doesn’t want the children to watch him die. She’s sure they’ve seen worse, given the situation, but if she can, she would like to spare them another horror.

“Dammit, Rogers,” she mutters. “If you die on me, I’m going to kill you.”

She gets a weak, unsteady laugh in return. “I’ll try not to,” he says.

“Don’t talk, you’ll make it worse,” she says, but secretly she’s pleased that he can still laugh.

* * *

 

There are days Sam can hardly believe he  _knows_ Captain America, let alone that the two of them are traveling around the world together. It seems every time they walk into a hotel room after a knowing wink from a concierge, Sam finds himself reevaluating his life choices.

Truth be told, though, it’s not Captain America that he’s hanging out with, not really. The guy who flirted with him at the National Mall ( _if_ it was flirting - Sam’s still a little unclear on what’s happening between them), the guy who asked for shelter when the entire world had him at the top of their hit list, the guy who looked him in the eye and told him he wouldn’t give up until he’d found his brainwashed best friend - that guy was Steve Rogers, not Captain America.

Because Steve is everything Captain America is - good and pure and noble and righteous - but he’s also everything Captain America  _isn’t_  - awkward and sarcastic and broken, just a little bit.

It’s the brokenness that scares him more than anything. He’s works at the VA - he’s knows PTSD when he sees it, and he can’t think of a situation much worse than what Steve has gone through. (Okay. Maybe Bucky has it worse. He’ll concede that.)

So when Steve challenges Hydra agents without a helmet, uses himself as bait, and gets  _stabbed in the chest,_ Sam has to assume this is reckless endangerment. That Steve is doing this  _on purpose_ because he doesn’t really care anymore.

Watching Steve wake up in the hospital is uncomfortably familiar. He’ll live - of course he’ll live. He’s Captain America - a little knife between the ribs isn’t going to bother him for long.

Sam leans over the hospital bed as soon as Steve opens his eyes.

“You can’t keep doing this, Steve,” he says, quiet but intense, holding Steve’s gaze. “You can’t just keep throwing your life away as bait. You have to take care of yourself.”

Steve huffs. “I’m fine, Sam,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Yeah, I do,” Sam says. “Because I  _care_ about you, you big knucklehead. Promise me you won’t use yourself as live bait anymore. Not unless I okay it first.”

“Saaaaam.”

“Promise.”

“Okay, I promise.” Steve’s blue eyes are squinting in amusement. Sam can’t decide whether he wants to smack him or kiss him.

“You idiot,” he says. “If you die, I’m gonna kill you.”

* * *

 

Steve doesn’t know how he ever got this lucky.

Somehow, he never in his wildest dreams imagined he would be sitting here on this couch, with Sam’s head on one shoulder and Bucky’s on the other, Natasha stretched out across their laps like a cat in the sun. Sam lets out a gentle noise, almost a snore but not quite, and Steve can’t stop himself from pressing a kiss to the man’s hair.

Then he looks back at the man leaning on his other side, and for a moment, Bucky looks so still and peaceful and young that his breath catches. If it weren’t for the tiny lines around his eyes, the long hair falling in his face, it would be like a snapshot taken back before the war. Bucky’s red lips are parted slightly, air passing between them in short, soft puffs.

Natasha curls tighter on his lap and he wishes one of his arms were free so that he could run a soothing hand up her shoulder. Unlike Bucky, she doesn’t look much younger in her sleep - just completely relaxed and boneless. It’s such a contrast from the controlled and precise way she holds herself while awake. It’s a floppy, ungraceful looseness that warms Steve’s heart, because he knows it means she trusts them.

Steve’s breath catches again at the thought of all the trust they place in him. He feels so responsible for them, for their safety, for their lives. For a moment, he contemplates the thought of losing them. He can see it all so vividly in his mind; Sam falling out of the sky without his wings, Natasha, shot in the back and bleeding out, the light fading out of Bucky’s eyes.

Sam shifts at his side and Steve turns to him, only to see that pair of brown eyes fix on his. A slight smile breaks Sam’s face, and he runs his hand up Steve’s chest, a comforting, possessive move.

“Hey, we’re here,” he whispers. “We’ve got you. We’re not going anywhere.”

“You’d better not,” Steve says, leaning in to claim a kiss. “If any of you die on me, I’m gonna kill you.”

Sam laughs into his mouth. “Goes double for you, Stevie,” he says.

Steve presses his forehead to Sam’s and wishes he could convey with his eyes just how much he loves them all. He thinks that Sam gets the picture though.

“Go to sleep, Steve,” he says. “We’ve got you.”


End file.
